Upgrade: Video card, or CPU/Mobo/RAM?

[goodlookin1]

Hello everyone,

I've been out of the loop on higher end computer hardware for a few years now. My last upgrade was back in the Q6600 days, and 4GB DDR2. I am considering upgrading my computer for better gaming performance in DX11, but have a slight dilemma. My current graphics card is an HD 4870 and I find that in Crysis, it gets about 40-70 FPS on 1680x1050 with no AA, maxed out quality. However, I am going to be moving my box to a 1920x1080 LCD TV and will need all the power I can get to run at that resolution. Upgrading the card to a newer model is obviously the easier answer to this.....but is it?

My worry is that my now older Q6600 processor and DDR2 800 ram is going to bottleneck any new card that I get. I dont want to dump a bunch of money into a new card if I will only get so much out of it because the rest of my system isnt quite up to date. If it means a 5-10 FPS difference by upgrading the processor, then that is not a worry at all....I'll get MUCH more than that by upgrading the card.

Can anyone tell me if it would be a waste to get a new vid card first? Should I swap out the guts first? Or should I not worry about that and just get the vid card and see how it goes? Any insight would be appreciated....I have forgotten much of what I used to know about hardware and gaming, specifically how much the processor and RAM affects the graphics.

Looking to play games like MW3, BF3, Crysis 1/2, etc.

Thanks.

 

[Jhatfie]

If you can OC your Q6600 a bit, to like 3.0Ghz or higher, at 1920x1080 you should not see that much of a cpu bottleneck and would likely see a greater performance boost from getting a better graphics card.

My son's computer is a Q6600 OC'd to 3.4Ghz, 4GB of DDR2 800 and a HD 6850 (OC'd to above 6870 speeds) and it does very well at 1920x1200.

 

[ZYFER]

I recently went through upgrading from a 8800GTS (the older, slower version) to a Radeon HD 6870. When I built the thing close to four years ago, it had a Core 2 Duo @ 3Ghz, it could run WoW at 1920x1080 at max settings with no issue. With the new expansion, it went down to Low. After upgrading to the new card, I could run it on max settings yet again, yielding a steady high fps.

So in short, with a new CPU, motherboard, and Ram, I would never have been able to yield such a performance boost. The video card would have remained the bottleneck. Ideally, it would be nice to upgrade everything, and you still can when you get around to it. In case of your video card, it certainly will remain the bottleneck for your system, at 1920x1080, it would probably cry painfully.

To note, you will lose a little performance capability out of the new video card due to your old motherboard. The loss is marginal, and hardly affects the substantial upgrade. To note, I paid $230 for it at the time, the rebate brought it under $200 though. It is even less now, and still has a rebate offer.

 

[sangyup81]

http://computers.shop.ebay.com/Grap...ds&_fln=1&_sc=1&_sop=15&_trksid=p3286.c0.m282

crossfire that 4870 if your MB isn't capable

otherwise, you'll get an idea of how much your 4870 should sell for on ebay if you get rid of it

 

[goodlookin1]

http://computers.shop.ebay.com/Grap...ds&_fln=1&_sc=1&_sop=15&_trksid=p3286.c0.m282

crossfire that 4870 if your MB isn't capable

otherwise, you'll get an idea of how much your 4870 should sell for on ebay if you get rid of it

You actually bring up a solid point....one which I COMPLETELY forgot to mention: My 4870 is a 1GB model, which will help with the higher resolutions. Not only that, but I also have a 2nd card sitting unused in my office! It was in a different build, but then I was getting all sorts of errors in the 2nd machine in XP and I RMA'ed it back and it's been sitting in my office ever since (I had to get another card in the machine to run in the meantime....cant have downtime at work for 2-3 weeks!). So now I have a 2nd card 4870 1 GB sitting unused.

So, instead of buying a new video card, should I buy a new 775 mobo with crossfire capability and keep my existing Q6600 (maybe OC it) and see how it goes? The downside to this is:

1) I'd be spending money on old tech (775 is long outdated now)
2) I wouldnt be able to run DX11....I'd be limited to DX10(10.1?).
3) I doubt that 2 4870 1GB's can even come close to matching what a single 6850/6950/GTX 570 can output

I suppose the other option is to keep my current 2 cards and instead upgrade the CPU/Mobo/RAM to current hardware, making sure to get a mobo that can do crossfire.

What would you guys do? Is DX11 worth it to get a new card? Dang, there's too many options....

Thanks for the responses so far.

 

[spaceman]

id sell both 4870s
ram,cpu+board
and do total overhauls

 

[goodlookin1]

id sell both 4870s
ram,cpu+board
and do total overhauls

If I lived in an ideal world where money grew on trees and had a wife that let me spend anything I wanted, this would certainly be option #1

buuuut.....

 

[spaceman]

those q6600 fetch good coin on the bay
ddr3 dirt cheap
an alt,
sale both 4870 and buy a single card

 

[darckhart]

rumor has it bf3 is supposed to trounce both your cpu and gpu. mw3, if it's going to be in the same vein, i would imagine you shouldn't have too much to worry about. crysis 1/2, if you turn on the eyecandy settings, could definitely use more graphics power.

so i think it depends mostly on how much longer you want to hold out, and how smoothly and with how much eyecandy you need to play your games at. since the games you want to play arent out yet (except the crysis), if you want to hold on to your mobo+cpu, and you need a card NOW, then sell those 4870s to help offset a 68xx on the cheap. otherwise, hold out for the newer cards (to see what performance they offer) to see how they will depress the prices on the current cards. and maybe by then you can do a whole system overhaul because that's what you really need.

 

[goodlookin1]

Well, after some research and pricing things out, I can change the guts of my PC out for $398 out the door for a Crossfire P67 board, 2500K CPU and 4GB ram. Then, I figure I can sell my current Mobo, CPU and 4GB RAM for $125-150 on eBay. So I figure worst case scenario, I can upgrade my internals for around $272.....that's not half bad. And there's $40 in rebates that I can take off of this price too, so 8 weeks later, it would end up being $232.

From there, I can see what kind of performance I can get with the 2 4870 1GB's....(my current mobo isnt crossfire capable). If I find they are lacking, then I can sell those and upgrade to a single 6850/6950.

Does this sound like a good plan?

 

[happy medium]

From there, I can see what kind of performance I can get with the 2 4870 1GB's

I would say 2x the performance because the 2500k is much faster than your current q6600.

 

[bryanW1995]

I definitely like the 2500k/p67/4gb ddr3 route, especially for less than $300 total out of pocket to you. You are probably better off keeping the 2 x 4870 for now, those cards should give you roughly gtx 560 ti or 6950 level of performance, though you only have dx10 with them. You would probably have to pay ~ $100 out of pocket after selling the 4870's to get one of those cards for the same performance, and significantly more than that for a very minor performance improvement from 6970 or gtx 570. Keep in mind that dual card solutions can be a pita sometimes, however, so you can always sell them and upgrade once the 28nm cards come out in late 2011/early 2012.

 

[blckgrffn]

Upgrading to my 5870 versus xfiring the 4830's made a huge difference (scaling link below.) Of course, some of this is like attributable to my ancienct 975x PCIe 1.0 board. xfire proved to be a PITA as Bryan mentioned.

http://www.teamjuchems.com/?p=1188

Granted, they weren't 1GB 4870's so minimum frame rates @ 1080p weren't good enough to keep me from selling the 4830's and dropping an additional benjamin for the 5870... hopefully they will be impressive with the 2500k I would think you could get there (2500k, etc.) for closer to $150 (w/8GB of ram) if you shopped harder. Do you have a Microcenter available to you?

With the 5870 and the q6700 I don't plan on upgrading the mobo/cpu/ram until 2013. I may have made a commitment to my wife about that, too...

 

[greenhawk]

in a similar boat, but went for the GPU upgrade to a GTX570, and a new monitor (1920x1080 over the older 1280x1024).

Currently playing with overclocking the cpu (got a new cooler as the stock was crap, even at 3Ghz @ stock voltages).

Was looking at s2011, but given it's poor showing (delivery schedual), just going to hold out for IB. The SB's 2500K/2600K was looking promising, but doubling CPU power was not that attractive when
a) the current does most things I want
b) IB is ment to have a very noticable step up again (18% at the high end thanks to the 3d transisters)

edit: and I already have a SSD/V'Raptor drive system

 

[RussianSensation]

4GB Corsair DDR3-1333 1.5V for $12 !!!!

8GB Patriot DDR3-1600 1.5V for $35 after MIR on the Egg. Pretty hard to build a modern gaming system without at least 8GB of ram nowdays!

Best bang for the buck on that rig would be to overclock the Q6600 to 3.2-3.4ghz and then upgrade the 4870 to a $150 HD6870 with Deus Ex free game.

But if you can sell your parts now while they still have value, going 2500k + mobo + DDR3 isn't a bad deal either. 2500k will overclock to 4.5ghz+ and will for sure last you 2-3 years. Gigabyte boards can be found for $130 with CF/SLI support. If you have a Microcenter near you, can you can even grab the 2500k + board and get another $40 off (2500k is $179.99 over there).

Keep in mind, if you are really on a budget, there is nothing wrong with an overclocked Q6600 @ 3.4ghz + 6870. Also, AMD Bulldozer is expected to come out in September. So if you are doing a full overhaul, then you can wait (You don't need to wait to buy ram at such low prices though!).

 

[Jhatfie]

Best bang for the buck on that rig would be to overclock the Q6600 to 3.2-3.4ghz and then upgrade the 4870 to a $150 HD6870 with Deus Ex free game. .

Ah the best 6870 deal appears to be this one!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.701843

XFX dual fan 6870 for $196.99 w/FS, use coupon code HARDOCPX817B knocking off $12. Rebate is $30 and it comes with Shogun 2 and Dues Ex and as long as copies are still available, Dirt 3! Can sell the codes for $15-$20 for Shogun2 and Dirt3 and $30 or so for Dues Ex.

So $197 - $12 -$30 and if you sell the games -$60 = $95!!

 

[goodlookin1]

Ok, I am convinced.

I'm going to go with the new Card instead of upgrading the guts. I figure if I can OC my Q6600, i'll get some more life out of it (more performance). If it's still good enough to run the games I want at decent frame rates, i'll opt for that. I'll do that upgrade with it's absolutely necessary.

Now for the card, I think i've decided to go with a 6950. I know theyre more expensive, but I can also unlock that to become a 6970 for the price of the 6950, which means more bang for the buck. I can get a MSI HD 6950 Frozr II OC 2GB for $264.99 OTD after MIR, which I have confirmed will Unlock. I think this is the best option, as of right now, unless someone else has a better suggestion?

 

[happy medium]

good choice!

 

[goodlookin1]

Ok, just pulled the trigger....only I changed my mind at the last second because I found an amazing deal on a PNY GTX 560 ti, $208.49 shipped! Moreover, the purchase comes with a $30 mail-in-rebate! = $178.49 shipped. In case anyone wants to know, B&H Photo & Video has some amazing deals on PNY stuff right now:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search...tialSearch=yes

They also have a 570 OC for $306 - $30 rebate - $276


After reading the reviews on the AMD vs nVidia, I figured there really wasnt too much of a difference between the two (unless I did the unlock), and even then I couldnt justify the +/-9% increase in performance for +$100.

Thanks everyone for the help!